


Schrödinger's Kate

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Episode Tag, Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I supposed this means we won," said Mozzie, hesitantly. The words tasted sour and gritty.</p><p>"By default." June screwed up her nose. "It's a fairly hollow victory, don't you think?"</p><p>(Episode tag for 2.05.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schrödinger's Kate

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to bethbethbeth for beta. &lt;3

"Does this change the plan?" asked Kate, and then there was an indescribable noise: the end of the recording and the end of a life.

Neal looked wrecked. Mozzie wanted to be there for him, but all he could think was, _It really is true._ There was no way Kate had escaped off the plane before the explosion.

All this time, Mozzie had been living with dual possibilities—the first, that Kate was dead like everyone thought, and the second, that she'd set the whole thing up, one giant scam to break Neal's heart so she could return from the grave and break him open again. Now the quantum possibilities had collapsed into a single, painful reality.

He hadn't talked to Neal about his suspicions, of course. That would be cruel, and Neal would only call him paranoid. And Mozzie didn't quite trust the Suit enough to ask questions there. But the man who'd been after the music box was powerful, no question about that; he could certainly have had the crash reports doctored, forensics faked. The black box recording had been shipped directly from the airstrip to the FAA though, and Mozzie was convinced now: Kate was gone.

Neal's shoulder was bowed with sadness. Mozzie clasped it, and they sat in a frozen tableau until Neal shook him off and went to pull a bottle of top-of-the-line vodka and two squat glasses from the kitchen cabinet. And then Mozzie listened to halting anger and memories, confusion and conspiracy theories for hours, and felt more and more guilty as he played along. He couldn't explain his role—it would only make things worse—but when he said, "I'm sorry, man," he meant it more than Neal would ever know.

Finally Neal fell asleep on the couch, drunk but not dangerously so, by Moz's reckoning, and Mozzie went to find June.

"She's really dead?" June asked.

Mozzie nodded, and accepted the tea she gave him. He'd drunk far less vodka than Neal, but he had imbibed and consequently wasn't at his sharpest. Still, habits were habitual: he went to the door, checked no one was listening, and closed it again. "I guess she got in over her head. Should have stuck with the small-time independent contractors."

"Like us," said June, nodding. Her expression was grave, and Mozzie appreciated that. June hadn't known Kate, but she understood the rules: death wasn't supposed to be part of the game.

"I supposed this means we won," said Mozzie, hesitantly. The words tasted sour and gritty.

"By default." June screwed up her nose. "It's a fairly hollow victory, don't you think?"

"Yeah." Mozzie took off his glasses and rubbed his face. "Neal had better never find out about this."

June spread her hands. "How could he?"

Mozzie went over the list of players in his head. There were only three: June's granddaughter Cindy, who'd made nice with Clinton Jones and discovered from him certain useful facts regarding Neal's parole arrangement and proposed accommodations; June herself, who'd "conveniently" arrived at the thrift store shortly after Neal, carrying exactly the right bait with which to catch his eye; and Mozzie.

They were safe unless Jones—or Peter Burke—somehow put the pieces together, and the chances of that were infinitesimal, given the FBI agents' apparent and unlikely propensity to trust representatives of the criminal underbelly. Mozzie suspected Neal had been unwittingly useful in winning them over.

So Kate had never stood a chance. Their competition was undertaken in good faith—each of them vying to get Neal's main stash, neither allowed to squeal on the other. Conning other conmen was a time-honored tradition, and Kate had been a worthy opponent, but her theory—that her damsel-in-distress routine would convince Neal to tell all—had been proven false from early on. She'd held his attention, and the scavenger hunt of bottle and letter had certainly kept him distracted, but as in the old Aesop fable, she'd been playing the north wind, and Mozzie, the kindly, patient sun. Sure, Neal hadn't confided the location of his main stash to Mozzie yet, but he'd given him access to considerable other wealth, and it was only a matter of time before something happened, by accident or design, and Neal would have to dig deeper into his reserves.

Still, it was hardly appropriate to be thinking about that now. The competition had never been intended as a duel to the death. As usual, Kate had fallen in with a bad crowd—this time, people with too much power and not enough respect for other people's agendas. And it seemed as if only luck and the timely arrival of Peter Burke that had stopped Neal from getting caught up in Kate's tragedy too. But he hadn't, thank God, and despite Mozzie's behind-the-scenes intrigues and Neal's propensity to keep secrets from _everyone_, Neal genuinely was his friend and vice versa. Mozzie was more than willing to provide a shoulder to cry on, as long as it was needed.

The pursuit of treasure could wait.

 

END


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